


off-kilter

by dansunedisco



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bisexuality, Crushes, F/F, F/M, Gen, Heartbreak, High School, Hopeful Ending, Minor Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell, Teen Angst, Underage Drinking, the dark is my third character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-27 02:43:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15014930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dansunedisco/pseuds/dansunedisco
Summary: Sansa leans forward.Margaery pulls back. A surprised smile is frozen on her face and she says, “Oh, you didn’t think I meant--?” as if she didn’t just ask Sansa to kiss her.-A moment between Sansa and Margaery leads to a moment between Sansa and Jon.





	off-kilter

**Author's Note:**

> okay, so. i don't know what i'm doing but i hope you like this.

Sansa leans forward.

Margaery pulls back. A surprised smile is frozen on her face and she says, “Oh, you didn’t think I meant--?” as if she didn’t just ask Sansa to kiss her.

The rejection hurts and the buzz of alcohol swimming through Sansa’s veins only intensifies the feeling. It takes everything she has in that moment to laugh it off like nothing in the entire world matters and teeter away on her high heels.

She finds Jeyne in the pool house and tells her she’s leaving for the night, blames an imaginary curfew when she gets a bewildered look in response.

“But you don’t have-- Sansa--” Jeyne calls out to Sansa’s retreating back.

She walks all the way home, fingers hooked into the straps of her heels. She's only seventeen but she feels so grown up: heartbroken because the girl she likes (liked) thought it was all a joke and she’s drunk, walking barefoot on the sidewalk in a dress her mother wouldn't approve of. It's a hollow win. A check in the box for the typical high school experience. All she wants to do now is get home and crawl under the covers because she'll have to spend most of her weekend doing damage control on her reputation. Her break-up with Joffrey was bad enough. Margaery Tyrell, she thinks, will be the killing blow. A total knockout in both senses of the word.

She unlocks the front door. There’s no point in climbing through her bedroom window; the ledge under it is precarious at best and she'd rather get caught in the foyer than on the lawn the next morning with a broken neck. She tiptoes inside. No one’s waiting up anyway. Sansa’s the good girl. She doesn’t party. She doesn’t drink. She doesn’t kiss girls and stumble home when it doesn’t pan out. Except that she does all of that. _Did_ all of that. The catch is that no one expects it from her, and so they never look.

“Sansa?” someone whispers.

Sansa’s stomach turns to water before she realizes it’s only Jon Snow _._ “Don’t _do_ that!” she snaps back from behind clenched teeth.

“What, say your name?”

“Scare me half to death, you idiot.”

He blinks at her, a cup of what she presumes to be water in his hand. He’s wearing a loose t-shirt -- the one with a hole in the neck -- and even baggier shorts. There’s just enough light outside for her to see his eyes track her up and down, assessing, and she crosses her arms across her stomach, weirdly cold and shivery all of a sudden.

“Did you sneak out?” he asks, after a moment.

They’re not friends, the two of them. He’s friends with all the Stark siblings but her. Arya calls him her other older brother, and Sansa can scant remember a holiday memory that didn’t have Jon Snow in the periphery. Even so, she was never particularly nice to him about it. Maybe she was even a little resentful he was able to soak up some of her father’s attention before he passed away, and now here he is: watching her in the dark of the foyer, a spectator to the ending of a night she already wants to forget. All her anger comes to a flashpoint. She wishes she had a verbal barb pointed enough to hurt him, but she barely knows him well enough for that. Instead, to her horror, tears well up in her eyes. Angry, frustrated tears.

He seems to get the wrong idea, puts his cup down on the island and awkwardly guides her to the living room. “Are you going to be sick?”

She shakes her head _no_ and lets Jon pluck her shoes out of her hands. He leaves, and she hears him shuffling around somewhere. Eventually he comes back with a black hoodie. She slips it on over her dress and turns her face into the collar, inhaling deeply without even thinking, wondering why he’s being so nice and why she’s letting him. “You home on break?” she asks, quietly. Robb still has one more class before he’s home for the summer.

“Yeah,” he replies. He’s sat down next to her. “I’m staying in Robb’s room for now, until I find a place.”

“Oh.” He must’ve just gotten in, she thinks. She didn’t even notice his car in the driveway when she left.

“Sansa,” Jon starts, after a long moment. He leans forward. “Did anything… happen?”

It’s the most brotherly Jon has ever been with her, this strange earnestness in his eyes like he’d beat the entire world up for her if she asked, and she folds into his side, craving some kind of connection even if she couldn’t quite put the compulsion into words. “No, and yes,” she whispers.

She ends up telling him the entire story: Marg and her school year and the dumb break-up with Joff. How her grades have slipped and she’s not even sure she’ll be able to get into a bottom tier school, and all because she cared more about her image than her grades. No one knows, because she lies. She's good at lying, now. Jon puts his hand over hers, dry and warm. It's a comforting weight. It doesn’t make anything better, of course, but it does make her feel better.

By the end of her rambling confession, her tears have dried up and she’s warm and sleepy, pressed firmly against Jon’s side. She feels like she could stay exactly like this forever, and maybe if she doesn’t move they’ll just lean into the cushions naturally and fall asleep, but eventually Jon gently squeezes her hand and says she better go to her room. She doesn't move, a part of her craving this illusion, wanting it to last just a little while longer. She turns her face towards his. It's the closest they've ever been. It doesn't feel right, but it doesn't feel wrong, either. Light from the streetlamp outside cuts into the room, a sliver that illuminates Jon’s face just enough. He’s handsome, she thinks. It’s a creeping thought that leaps out at her all at once; his hair, his eyelashes, the messy scruff of a beard that wasn’t there the last time she saw him. He’s looking back at her, too, and she wonders what he sees. Her mascara is ruined, surely, and her artfully done hair is probably more rat’s nest than crown braid, but maybe -- maybe, she thinks, that’s alright. She licks her lips, feeling like the world’s taken on an entirely new slant. Just a few degrees off-kilter and enough to change her perspective.

“Come on, San,” he says, breaking the silence with her childhood nickname and pulling her up from the couch with him. His bedroom -- Robb’s room -- is on the first floor, but hers is on the second. It’s too much to ask him to walk her up, she knows, so she musters up all her courage and presses a kiss to his cheek before she takes off, heart hammering in her chest.

She pauses at the bottom of the stairs, fingers curled into the extra fabric of Jon’s hoodie, and dares to look back. Jon has his hand raised. It's too dark now to see his expression, but it's enough to imagine his fingers brushing against his cheek. She exhales. Something loosens in her chest. She almost says goodnight before she thinks better of it, wanting to keep her memory of this night exactly as it is.

She takes the steps two at a time, like she’s five again and full of dreams, and wonders what this summer will bring.


End file.
